The Swift, the Smart and the Cheat
by pouncepounce
Summary: A turian, a krogan and a human; three Shadow Broker agents stationed in Nos Astra, Illium. They have been tasked with the location and acquisition of a certain data drive; simple enough, but things are never that boring in their line of work.
1. Chapter 1

"And you're _sure_ this is going to work?" Cameli asked from the back of their skycar, her sub-harmonics drenched in scepticism.

"How many times have you asked that before?" Conroy countered with a question of his own, looking back from the passenger's seat towards the turian woman sitting relaxedly with her arms spread wide, taking up both of the back seats.

"Lost count," Zig chimed in with a rumble from the driver's seat, answering the question in Cameli's stead, his sturdy krogan hands placed firmly over the car controls, "The answer's always going to be the same."

"' _Hopefully'_ ," Conroy gave his standard reply to Cameli's standard question and grinned at her, to which she sighed and rolled her eyes.

The skycar cruised through the busy traffic, the Tasale star burning over Nos Astra for a few final minutes for the day before it disappeared under the horizon, its light mixing with the hot fumes of engines and reactors to create a spectacular sunset.

Zig banked left off of their lane of traffic, slowing down and flying towards a parking platform jutting out from one of the countless towers. "I _think_ this is it," the krogan said as he steered them closer to the tower, sounding almost uncertain.

"Looks like it," Conroy agreed as he peered out of the side window, "There're a whole lot of people down there and they're all well-dressed." He straightened up the collar of his '21st century inspired' suit and rechecked his hair in the mirror for the last time as Zig parked the skycar in an empty spot.

In his early thirties, Conroy noticed he was starting to look a little 'rough around the edges'; upon close observation, one could see that there were a few grey strands in the midst of his jet black hair and that some wrinkles were forming on his pale white skin. His eyes, however, remained physically the same as they had been for as long as he could remember, except his gaze looked slightly tired now. Older, somehow.

"How many times have you checked your damn hair today?" Cameli asked from the back, now sporting a grin herself and fluttering her mandibles in amusement, "It's always going to look the same."

"You kind of look like an asari with your hair like that, Conroy," Zig chimed in again before the human, who was wearing his hair slicked back, could reply.

" _This_ was how the mobsters back on Earth wore it back in the day," Conroy replied in mock offence.

"Hard to believe you humans wore _fabric_ wrapped around your neck to be taken seriously," Zig grunted.

"It's called a _tie_ , Zig," Conroy said ruefully, "You'll never understand."

"No, I won't," Zig said giving a small krogan chuckle, which was plenty loud and rumbling, " _You_ understand the plan right? It's simple enough, even for a human."

"Get in, grab the data, get out," Conroy recited as he opened the door and stepped out of the skycar, quickly followed by Cameli, who was wearing a modern turian dress.

Made of a high grade organic material sourced from Palaven, the material was soft to the touch, accentuated by a royal purple dye. The cut was one which complimented the turian figure well, starting extremely wide from Cameli's shoulders with excess material stacked and wrapped around the base of her neck, tapering and narrowing very quickly as it approached her thin waist, only to widen again to accommodate for her hips, covering them naturally and cleanly. From the waist, the dress introduced a small slit down the skirt all the way down to its lowermost end at Cameli's ankles, revealing a portion of her naked right leg, and her feet were covered in a pair of platform shoes, which complimented and accentuated their natural turian arc and were of the same colour as the rest of her outfit. Overall, Cameli's attire made her give off a calm and elegant aura.

Conroy unashamedly scanned Cameli up and down as she stepped out of the car, giving a light and equally unashamed nod with a look of casual approval. In no way did he have a fetish for turians, but he knew when he saw something beautiful, and he also knew that by turian standards, she was a real 'looker', as his turian friends had often hammered into his brain.

"While I _do_ appreciate the sentiment," Cameli said with playful annoyance and a smirk, " _As always,_ try not to gawk." With that, she walked passed Conroy towards the entrance to the tower, followed closely by the human, who was walking at a slightly faster pace to catch up to her.

"Two guards," Conroy whispered to Cameli as they approached the entrance, "Well armed." Two turians, wearing full medium armour and carrying assault rifles were standing on either side of an unarmed and unarmoured salarian. "Here, put your arm around mine."

Cameli complied, confidently and without reluctance, placing her right arm through the hole that Conroy had created with his left.

As they arrived at the door, the salarian greeted the two of them with a smile, "Welcome to Narina Towers. Names, please."

"Mister and missus Terius-Long," Conroy said, with a demeanour of practised cool and meticulous casualness.

A moment passed as the salarian looked over the guest list on his omnitool, "Ah, yes. The scan will take just a moment."

After the salarian had waved over the couple with his omnitool, checking for biometric matches and hidden weapons, it pinged to signal that they had passed the security test.

"Thank you," the salarian said politely as he moved out of the pair's way to let them pass through the entrance, "Please enjoy your stay."

Cameli and Conroy both internally let out a silent sigh of relief as they walked past the salarian and on towards the door.

"Wait," the salarian raised his voiced to hold them up, just as they were about to enter the building, "It says here that you two have been married for twenty five years?"

There was a moment of awkward silence as the salarian looked suspiciously at the duo, now locked closer to each other by their arms than before. The sound of skycars flying overhead seemed to become louder for a few seconds as Conroy thought of the only thing he could say.

"It's the big twenty five this year," Conroy said, his voice still unwavering, his expression still unalarmed, "We married young."

"At the ages of ten and eleven?" the salarian questioned, looking increasingly doubtful. The two turians at his side were looking a little tense now, holding their rifles with grips that were noticeably tighter.

"We married _very_ young," Cameli said, affectionately stroking Conroy's left arm with her free left hand.

"Are humans and turians even _allowed_ to be bound by marriage contracts that young?" the salarian seemed almost genuinely curious.

"We took credits from our parents and travelled to a small Terminus colony where it's legal to hold that kind of ceremony," Conroy explained quickly, but not too quickly, "It was dangerous, our families disagreed _and_ we faced heavy uproar, but we did it anyways."

"Petty legalities couldn't get in the way of _our_ love," Cameli said, almost melodramatically, as she softly leaned her head on Conroy's shoulder.

"Oh," the salarian said a little quietly as he looked slightly taken aback, as did the turian guards, before he returned to his senses. "My apologies for the inconvenience," he said with his head slightly bowed and sounding almost _touched_ by their fabricated story, "Identity theft is extremely common on Illium, especially in Nos Astra."

"Not at all," Conroy said with a natural swagger, "You're just doing your job."

"Yes, sir," the salarian said with a smile, his suspicion completely gone now, "You are now free to enter."

"Thank you," Cameli farewelled with her refined charm as she and Conroy turned and made their ways into the tower.

* * *

 _"Look,"_ Zig said over their communications line, _"I'm_ sorry _, alright?"_

"Married at _ten_?" Cameli hissed, "Spirits, what were you thinking?"

Cameli and Conroy were walking down a flight of carpeted stairs towards the main dining area of the party, their arms still locked together.

 _"Krogan start breeding at around a hundred or so and we live for over a millennium!"_ Zig said defensively, _"So relatively speaking-"_

"Well now you know it _doesn't_ work on a one-to-one scale," Conroy said, hiding a chuckle under his voice, "Let's just make sure this doesn't happen again."

"You think this is funny?" Cameli said incredulously, looking to her side to face her partner.

"You don't?" Conroy replied with his trademark grin as he looked back into Cameli's glaring eyes, to which the turian woman's eyes softened in resignation as she groaned and shook her head, before regaining her composure and continuing on down the stairs.


	2. Chapter 2

"I think that's him," Conroy said discretely to Cameli as he looked over the sea of heads at the hall, nodding towards a salarian, the owner of the tower and consequently the host of the party, who was standing several meters away. He had a colourful cocktail in his hand and was in the midst of a crowd of four of his guests, as he conversed and entertained them.

"You're right," Cameli said after confirming their mark with her own eyes, "Go do your thing." She released her grasp of Conroy's arm as he grabbed a cocktail of his own from a passing waiter and ran his fingers backwards through his hair.

 _"The power systems should be in the east wing of this floor,"_ Zig reminded over the communications _, "I'll guide you through it."_

With that, Cameli moved away with slight haste whilst maintaining her elegant stroll, so that if people were to catch on to her hurriedness, they would only assume that she was on her way to the bathroom, or somewhere else _other_ than the power systems control room.

Weaving her way through the crowd, remembering to maintain a soft smile on her face to avoid suspicion, she quietly observed all of the guests seemingly enjoying their times, holding cocktails in one hand and expensive purses in the other with wide smiles on their faces, although she knew that many of them probably had ulterior motives and a touch of 'bad'; CEOs using illegal slave labour to cut back on costs, arms dealers selling stolen military weapons to mercenaries, the list went on. Somehow, knowing this made stealing from them, whether it was information, tangible objects, credits or even lives, easier for Cameli; it made her feel that they weren't above her, that they were just equals fighting for a piece of a finite sized cake in this chaotic galaxy. Trying to get by, although some of them were doing much better for themselves than just 'getting by'.

Eventually, Cameli arrived at a narrow hallway that led to a separate area from the main hall, directed by Zig through the comms, which she followed through until it arrived at a dead end with a locked door. A turian guard was standing in front of the door, except unlike those which were guarding the front entrance to the building this one was only armed with a handgun and was wearing light armour. She assumed that the host had thought that all of the threats would be able to be weeded out before entering the premises, and that this guard was just a precaution for curious, but mostly harmless guests.

"The room's locked and there's a guard, lightly armed," Cameli whispered into her communicator so as to not reveal her presence. The guard, who had probably gotten bored, was checking and rechecking the latches on his armour and had yet to realise that Cameli was standing there. For this, Cameli silently both thanked the guard, for being careless, and reprimanded him for the same reason, as a fellow disciplined turian, despite not being on the same side nor his superior. "No cameras," she added as she noticed that there were no security cameras set along the ceiling.

 _"The guard should have the digital key on his omnitool, except he's probably locked it, like any sane person would,"_ Zig said in a matter-of-fact tone, _"Deal with him and get inside."_

Looking at the guard from afar, Cameli knew exactly what she had to do; he was a turian man, and turian men were all the same. Entering his field of view with a confident stride, her hips swaying slightly from side to side, she approached the turian guard until he finally noticed her.

"Ma'am, this is a dead end for you," the guard said clearly as he raised his hand, "Staff only past this door."

"Oh," Cameli said in her most innocent voice she could manage, "My apologies. I was just looking for the wash room." She leaned her head in to show off her fringe, which she _knew_ looked good. Noticing that the guard's eyes momentarily wondered away from her eyes to somewhere a little above before returning to them, she pushed a little more, adjusting her body language to shift the guard's attention to her 'supportive' waist.

The guard was obviously failing under her influence, more so as she locked eyes with him with a look that screamed lust. "Say," Cameli continued, "Would you mind sharing extranet addresses?"

The guard, looking as if he would be willing to share _much more_ than just extranet addresses in a heartbeat, agreed almost instantly, while still attempting, and failing, to sound nonchalant, "Sure, why not?"

The moment that the guard unlocked and activated his omnitool was the one in which Cameli struck. With uncanny strength and swiftness, Cameli kneed the guard in the groin, sending a jolt of pain, amplified by the fact that he had been aroused, with such intensity throughout his body that his scream was muted as he bent forward in shock. She then covered the guard's mouth and grabbed his chin with her left hand, to ensure that his scream would remain muted for what she was about to do, and grabbed his left mandible with her right. The guard's eyes, already wide from the excruciating and sudden pain, widened further as he felt Cameli's grip on his face. Yet it was too late now, there was no time to react.

The instant that Cameli was able to get a firm grip on the guard's chin and his mandible, she pulled them apart from each other until she heard a sickening crunch of the extension breaking off of its base, to which the guard's body went limp. Holding his body upright, she checked if the guard was still alive. _Still breathing_ , she confirmed as she felt his weak yet present breaths on her face, before gently laying his body down in the corner.

Cameli reached down and grabbed the guard's arm to access his unlocked omnitool, transferring the digital key over to that of her own and within seconds she had gained access to the room. Upon the opening of the door and making sure that the room was devoid of any personnel presence, Cameli dragged the still unconscious guard through the door and into the control room, which was filled with various screens and user interfaces, dropping him in a hidden corner behind a particularly large terminal.

"Alright," Cameli whispered, although she didn't really have to, "I'm in."

 _"Good. Is the guard still in one piece?"_ Zig asked suspiciously.

"Mostly," Cameli replied with a devilish smirk as she stretched out her talons in preparation for the task ahead of her, "Now what?"

 _"Now you do_ exactly _as I say_ ," Zig replied before he started relaying the information Cameli required for her to tamper with the tower's power systems just right; not enough to warrant an emergency, but enough to desire a fix.

* * *

Conroy took a small sip from his cocktail as he scanned over the area, analysing the situation. Vinar Fin, the host and their target, was walking around the hall from group to group, making sure to entertain all of his guests. It was taking a little longer for the group Conroy had embedded himself into, consisting of three other strangers turned acquaintances, to get their turn, but Fin would arrive eventually. Preferring to do things 'on the fly', despite Zig's persistent criticism, Conroy had not yet planned on how to actually get the salarian to the control room, so really he didn't mind the extra time they were getting before the host arrived. It was then that the turian woman in his current conversation group, D'Len, snapped him out of his thoughts with her sharp, unusually high pitched voice, "And then, the volus tripped and tumbled down the entire flight of stairs!"

The four of them within the group laughed calculatedly as they continued to listen to D'Len's tale with feigned interest, filling in the gaps with gasps, sighs and shakes of the head appropriately. This continued until Fin finally arrived at their group.

"Good evening!" Fin welcomed loudly as he approached the four of them as they expanded the circular formation they had formed in order to fit an extra member, "I hope you are all enjoying your night so far."

"We are indeed. Everything is quite splendid, in fact," D'Len complemented with a bright smile, despite the fact that she was slightly annoyed that the spotlight was no longer on her, although Conroy was unsure if the others had caught on to it. Turian micro-expressions were difficult to catch unless you were doing it consistently and intentionally. Judging from her eagerness to be the centre of attention and her colony markings, Conroy guessed that despite being rich and powerful nowadays, D'Len had started off from a poorer background and hustled and fought her way to the top. _A woman of action_ , he thought to himself. He had once known another turian woman with the same markings as D'Len, who had told him about her poverty stricken colony of origin.

"Especially the drinks," Conroy added, raising the cocktail he was holding towards Fin, who looked pleased, "Speaking of which, I've heard you're quite a fan of good drinks yourself."

To this comment, Fin looked genuinely surprised, eyes widened and rapidly blinking, "Yes, that is very true. I am a collector, of sorts."

The truth was that Conroy hadn't actually heard about it at all, it was just a guess. The scotch used in the cocktail Conroy was holding, which he was able to recognise by its distinctive taste, was one which he had always thought of as a bottle that people who didn't have much real taste for drinks bought, typically because it was recommended by a guide or some critic that was secretly 'sponsored' by the distillery. In his experience, these were also the people that were the last to admit that they had no real idea what they were talking about but liked to brag about their collection.

As expected, Fin spoke about his whiskey collection and how robust it was over the span of several minutes, before continuing on to talk about his empire and fortune for even longer, all the while the group listened intently and reacted appropriately at each cue, just as they had done with D'Len. Most of it, Conroy already knew, but the biggest nugget of information that he took away from Fin's speech, was that the salarian's pride was misplaced, yet extreme. Fin, a contact had informed Conroy, was the opposite of D'Len in that he had been born into wealth and had been destined to become powerful before he even took his first steps.

 _"Cameli is about to tamper with the power systems"_ Zig notified over the communicator before quickly cutting off the line, not expecting a reply; Conroy was almost always embedded within a crowd and unable to give verbal confirmation.

Suddenly, Conroy had an idea. "Glad to know you're a knowledgeable and capable leader," he complimented Fin, "Too many out there nowadays give themselves that title without knowing the difference between _leading_ and _ordering_." Analysing the salarian's expression very closely, Conroy noticed that the timid prince was looking a little uncomfortable beneath the smile that was plastered across his face.

"You're _exactly_ right, Mister Long," D'Len agreed, addressing Conroy by the name he introduced himself with, before proceeding into another short speech about how too many so called leaders were actually incapable and spineless, each spoken word making Fin all the more uncomfortable, Conroy could tell, although once again, he was unsure if the others could.

"And that is why we need more leaders such as yourself, Mister Fin," D'Len finished and, as if on cue, the lights flickered heavily for a moment, before slightly dimming permanently.

"Strange," Fin muttered as he looked towards the lights embedded into the ceiling far above him, when one of the staff members approached him to offer to investigate the power control room, to which the salarian host waved his hand in declination. "It's alright," Fin spoke with a slightly forced air of authority, "I'll investigate it myself."

Just as Conroy had anticipated, there was no way that a man with such pride and hubris could let himself act in a way that might put him at even the slightest risk of being seen as weak or incompetent after hearing a speech like the one D'Len had just given. "If you'll excuse me," Fin said with a nod towards his guests, before briskly walking away and heading towards the power control room.


End file.
